Everything you need to know to draw The Flatwoods Monster

Maybe it’s an owl and a couple trees? Maybe It’s Doom from Space!

Good ol’ 1950s West Virginia, where the only thing that usually interrupted the crickets, was the occasional explosion of a backwater still. But on the evening of september 12, 1952, in the town of Flatwoods, that was about to change (duh duh DUH!)… Three younglings (about Goonies aged) spotted a glowing fireball streak across the sky and appear to crash into Farmer Bailey’s woods. As kids are prone to do, they ran just as fast as their wee little legs could take them to the scene of the crash.

When our young investigators crest the hill to the scene, they see what seems to be a large glowing red orb about 50 feet down the embankment. Then one of the kids notices two much smaller, glowing red orbs in the trees about 15 feet away and about 9 feet off the ground. As their peepers adjust and true terror sets in, they realize those orbs are eyes of an impossibly tall cloaked beast with what appears to be, long, stringy, claw tipped arms thrashing the air. Suddenly the eyes lunge towards them with supernatural speed. At which point, the kids, fearing for their souls run back the way they came. One claiming in his telling that, as he peered back he saw the beast chase right to the edge of his peripheral vision then veer back towards the giant red orb.

The kids run home, cause quite the commotion in town (it was not just them who had seen the fireball). And a small posse was soon dispatched to Farmer Bailey’s land ready to do battle with the menace. In the end, no alien corpse were retrieved, no arms wrenched from their sockets with unknowable malice… but there were some burnt spots on the ground and many described a noxious, sulfury stench that left them ill for weeks after the encounter…

Sure if you do the math it certainly sounds like an owl in a couple of wind blown trees… but what? They can’t have owls in space? Here’s what you’ve got to work with

From Braxton County, West Virginia

Approximately 9 feet tall

Has glowing red eyes, maybe in a hood? maybe in a pointed helmet?

Has loooong stringy arms, or no arms, or long stringy arms that move so fast, you cant see them

It’s body is long and triangular as if wearing a flowing space cloak (also similar to a pine tree)

Moves with no visible legs and what seems impossible, floating, grace and speed

Smells noxiously of farts or something similarly foul!

That’s what you’ve got! So get out those pencils, go to town and send that sh*t in cause we’ve been hurting for drawers lately and I’m a man with too many shirts. You’ve got til the 23rd…And you can’t win if you don’t draw! So get going!

The Judges have convened and decision rendered! Here’s what everyone picked and their reasonings:

Ken
I’m going G Ball on this one. Of course that fancily-clad tree is screaming, there’s a god damned bird on her arm!

Sarah
I’m loving Archangelo’s interpretation. Its like a Mars Attacks alien got really lost in a corn field and it totally works.

Cody
# 7 I like that the wings are useless cause it floats anyways

Mona
#7! I’m a sucker for anything that can pull off threatening yet adorable all at once. Those talons, long wirey arms, threatening glare and wing position all suggest danger …but that fluffy chest and X for a belly button…can anyone resist wanting to just hug the crap out of it.

Chip
You know I’m torn this round, but instead of creating the dreaded tie, I’m giving Cedr extra credit for his link to a wartime conspiracy and psyOps monster tale!

Disagree if you must but know that judgement is law and to the winner a shirt will go…. Thanks to drawers and judges alike. And even though the contest is done we’ll always welcome new Flatwoods Monster drawings for the archives! So draw on, and remember, 25 beasts drawn earns you a shirt!